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Yoshihiro Asai (浅井 嘉浩 Asai Yoshihiro), (born December 12, 1966 in Nagoya, Aichi), better known as Último Dragón (ウルティモ ドラゴン), is a Japanese professional wrestler and actor.[1] In addition to having trained in Japan, Asai learned to wrestle in the lucha libre style while working in Mexico. Asai is credited with popularizing the "Asai Moonsault". Asai is the only professional wrestler in the world to hold 11 titles at the same time. On October 11, 1996, he won the J-Crown, a unification of eight junior (lightweight) division titles from various international promotions. At the time, he also held the NWA Middleweight and WCW Cruiserweight titles, plus he was one third of the WAR World Six-Man Tag Team Championship, making him the most decorated wrestler in the world at the time.[2] He speaks Spanish fluently, and resided in Mexico for several years.
[edit] CareerThe name "Ultimo Dragon", which means "Last Dragon" in Spanish was initially used as a gimmick of Asai claiming to be the final student taught by legendary martial artist Bruce Lee, whose nickname was "The Dragon".[2] The gimmick was later forgotten, but the name remained. Asai debuted in New Japan Pro Wrestling in 1987, but left the promotion along with his mentor, Gran Hamada, to help form Hamada's Universal Lucha Libre promotion. When the ULL went into decline, he moved to WAR. [edit] World Championship WrestlingAsai made his American debut for the World Championship Wrestling (WCW) promotion in 1996 initially under the name The Ultimate Dragon. He was referred to by this name for several months in WCW until they realized it was a translation error and reverted to using his real ring name.[3] He quickly was pushed into the lime-light of the WCW Cruiserweight division with Sonny Onoo as his manager. He was instantly a heel based upon the fact he was Japanese and Sonny Onoo was his manager. He made his WCW pay-per view debut in 1996's Hog Wild against Rey Misterio, Jr. for the WCW Cruiserweight title but lost. He got back the win at WCW World War 3 when he returned to WCW as the J-Crown champion. He then feuded with Dean Malenko for the WCW Cruiserweight title which he won at Starrcade 1996. Dragon later dropped the Cruiserwight title back to Malenko but his stock was rising as he won the WCW Television title from Prince Iaukea but lost it to Steven Regal. He then turned face by dropping Onoo as his manager and won back the Television title from Regal before losing to Alex Wright at the last Clash of the Champions. He would then win the WCW Cruiserweight title one last time from Eddy Guerrero. He then suffered an arm injury in 1998 that required surgery. The operation was botched, causing nerve damage. It was thought that this would force an end of his career and he announced his retirement.[2] In 1997, Asai then became a trainer where he trained three classes of students, "Toryumon Japan", "Toryumon 2000 Project" (T2P), and "Toryumon X". His first class of students which included Don Fuji, Dragon Kid, Magnum TOKYO, CIMA and SUWA worked for WCW early in their career. In 1998, Asai began co-promoting Grupo Internacional Revolución (IWRG) based out of Mexico, where he trained several of the top young wrestlers.[4] In 1999, a promotion named Toryumon opened, with the vast majority of the roster having been trained by Asai. Toryumon was later renamed Dragon Gate, and Asai parted ways with the promotion. He continued to train students at his gym. In 2002, Asai underwent another surgery to repair the damage done to his arm in hopes of returning to wrestling. In late 2002 Ultimo Dragon was in talks with World Wrestling Entertainment for another shot at a United States run. To get back into ring shape he returned to action for his T2P and Toryumon Mexico promotions. On November 26, he teamed with former WCW wrestlers Norman Smiley and Perry Saturn in a win against Masaaki Mochizuki, Keni'chiro Arai and Touru Owashi for T2P. On December 7 he teamed with Mochizuki and Dragon Kid in a win over the team of Bestia Salvaje, Scorpio, Jr. and El Duende for Toryumon Mexico. [edit] World Wrestling EntertainmentIn the spring of 2003, he signed with World Wrestling Entertainment as the Último Dragón, seeking to realize his two lifelong goals of competing in Madison Square Garden and performing at WrestleMania. He was brought in on the heels of the signing of Rey Mysterio on the belief that he would make as big of an impact as Mysterio did upon his WWE debut. Asai made his WWE debut in dark match victories against Rico, Crash Holly and Shannon Moore as they debuted a series of video packages hyping the debut of Dragon on SmackDown. He made his WWE television debut at Madison Square Garden on the June 26, 2003 episode of SmackDown! in a match with Shannon Moore, where he debuted his finisher, the Asai DDT to the American wrestling audience. Throughout the summer he floundered around having matches in the WWE United States Championship tournament beating Jamie Noble but losing to future winner Eddie Guerrero. He quickly rebounded by beating Kanyon in a Heat match taped before Vengeance. He then wrestled on Velocity for the next few weeks until he had a match with Rey Mysterio on SmackDown. Dragon won the match only after Tajiri interfered and showed respect to Dragon due to their Japanese heritage. The next week Dragon teamed with Mysterio to take on Tajiri and Nunzio but lost. From there he was not seen on SmackDown for months until the build for the Cruiserweight Open at WrestleMania XX. He then faced Chavo Guerrero and Nunzio for his last WWE matches. His contract expired in 2004. [edit] Back In Japan and MexicoSince leaving WWE, Asai quickly picked up a New Japan tour in May 2004. He has occasionally wrestled for the Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre. He also took part in the short lived Japanese independent promotion Dragondoor, ran by one of his student Noriaki Kawabata using mostly T2P and Toryumon X graduates in lower lever. He would wrestle in matches against Ultimo Guerrero and various other stars who wrestled in Mexico or Japanese based lucha libre promotions. Since the fall of Dragondoor he went back to Mexico to run another class of the Toryumon school which has lead to some standouts in Hajime Ohara, Kazuchika Okada, and Pequeño Ninja. The rest of the Toryumon students along with Asai joined the Tatsumi Fujinami promoted Dradition promotion in Japan. In 2006, Asai began promoting the annual "Toryumon Mexico: Dragon Mania" wrestling show.[5] He also wrestled at UWA Hardcore Wrestling based outside of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He has wrestled against Sonjay Dutt, M-Dogg 20, Chris Sabin, The Blue Meanie, Alex Shelley, and Black Tiger all in the UWA. [edit] Movie careerUltimo Dragon starred in two films in 2008. The first was Bloodstained Memoirs, also starring Chris Jericho, Rob Van Dam, Mick Foley and Keiji Mutoh. Ultimo Dragon's scenes were filmed in the UK and Italy.[6] The other was Ultimo Dragon. Little is known about this film, other than Ultimo Dragon stars, and it is a heroic martial arts story.[7] [edit] In wrestling
[edit] Championships and accomplishments
1Despite Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre keeping the NWA initials as part of these two championships after leaving the National Wrestling Alliance, they are not sanctioned nor recognized as world titles by the National Wrestling Alliance. [edit] References
[edit] External links
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